Annie Wood Besant was a prominent Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and disciple of Mme H.P. Blavatsky. Born as Annie Wood in 1847 in London into a middle-class family of Irish origin. Annie was always proud of being Irish and supported the cause of Irish self-rule throughout her adult life. Annie was educated privately by a female tutor as an Evangelical Christian. She was given a strong sense of duty to society and an equally strong sense of what independent women could achieve. As a young woman, she was also able to travel widely in Europe. There she acquired a taste for Catholicism that never left her.